Heating Study and Heating, Combustion and Dilution Design
Long Beach Medical Center, Komanoff Center for Geriatric and Rehabilitative Medicine, Long Beach, NYOverview
Long Beach Medical Center wanted to upgrade boilers and heating for its geriatric and rehabilitation wing. The goals were to convert from oil to natural gas, reduce the number of boilers needed, and identify potential energy savings.
As the prime consultant, MEP conducted heat studies to identify inefficiencies and code issues. We reconfigured the boilers, combustion and dilution, and fuel gas piping to improve efficiencies. Our designs reused as much infrastructure as possible to reduce renovation costs.
Fuel Gas and Modular Boiler Upgrade
Facility Description
Long Beach Medical Center (LBMC) is composed of two wings. One is the Komanoff Center, a 200-bed sub-acute and skilled nursing facility composed of five stories in height and approximately 100,000 square feet. The other wing is a 162-bed community teaching hospital. The building was served by 30 modular oil-fired boilers of approximately 23 years of age.
Project Origin and Goals
Boilers serving the Komanoff Center at LBMC were nearing the end of their service life and they experienced reoccurring burning of the interior refractory lining since their installed. But the motivation for this project was to abandon fuel oil and changeover to fuel gas. The facility had a small gas service to feed the commercial kitchen but an entire new gas service needed to be installed with sufficient capacity for the proposed boilers. The facility’s goals were to reduce the overall number of modular boilers, verify boiler capacity requirements, and identify potential energy savings.
MEP was the prime consultant for this project retained directly by LBMC to analyze, conceptualize, design, provide construction services, contractor administration and conduct the necessary final inspections for the Department of Health.
MEP was given a three week period to produce a compliant design concept and specifications in order to file and meet the client’s budget and projected construction schedule.
Site Findings and Solutions
Boiler — Based on our field investigations the reoccurring burning of the interior refractory lining was caused due to the firing rate. The original installation called for the boilers to fire at maximum rate hence causing accelerated lining deterioration. This issue was addressed in MEP’s design concept.
MEP conducted an actual heating consumption study and carried out heating load calculations to ascertain adequate original equipment capacity. This study concluded that the existing boiler plant was oversized by 20%.
A modular boiler arrangement of twenty one 399 MBH Peerless boilers were proposed to provide a total of 250 boiler horsepower. The proposed modular layout would provide the required spare capacity to comply with 10 NYCRR Section 710, NYSBC and AIA Hospital and Health Care Facilities Design Guidelines. The existing breeching and water mains were able to be reused without extensive alterations.
Combustion & Dilution — During the design development phase it was discovered that the existing combustion and dilution air opening were undersized to meet current code requirements. MEP specified new openings to provide all air from outdoors with associated modulating damper controls.
Fuel Gas — An new service was brought into the building to serve the new boilers and the preexisting commercial kitchen as the existing service was removed. The existing fuel gas piping and equipment was field verified to provide proper service interconnection. The new service was designed to come into the boiler room with a four inch low pressure main, connect to the boilers and continue to feed the kitchen.
Summary
MEP completed the design and specifications within schedule. This project was filed with NYS Department of Health/Office of Health Systems Management.
